Seirei had mixed feelings when the woman helping her told her that another healer was available. She was very nervous about seeing someone other that Waisana. Her experiences in the past with healers other than her friend had not been good ones. But that was back when she had been a captive. People in general seemed to accept her now. Gone were the scorn, and distrust. Gone were ridicule, and dark looks. So perhaps the other healers would treat her better, too. Seirei wasn't certain that she trusted the apparent change of heart people showed her. She understood that bonding to a strider was a very important thing in the eyes of the Drykas people. But it seemed strange to her that things would change so much so quickly. And Seirei couldn't help but wonder if they wouldn't change back just as quickly.
Still, Seirei had the twins to consider. They shouldn't be exposed to this weather more than absolutely necessary. What if they got sick because of it? And the Pearl that the woman spoke of did sound nice. The talk of Pearl liking children, and having children of her own decided it for Seirei. So she smiled, and thanked the woman, allowing her to bring her into Pearl's office.
It was probably a good thing that the other woman had taken control so completely. Seirei wasn't at all certain that she would have been able to bring herself to seek out a healer she didn't know without her to make it happen. Seirei's anxiety threatened to overwhelm her, but she managed to work through it by focusing completely on the task immediately in front of her. When asked for her name, Seirei flushed, and stammered an apology. She should have remembered to offer her name first.
"I'm Seirei." she said quietly.
The healer...Pearl eased some of Seirei's anxiety when she took a few ticks to check the twins over. She really must like children if she was willing to give a complete stranger's children a once over to make sure they were not sick even though they were not her patients. When Pearl introduced herself, Seirei smiled shyly, and introduced herself again. It was an automatic response to an introduction, and Seirei felt a bit silly afterwards, having had introduced herself mere chimes before. But she was nervous enough that she was she couldn't really do anything else. Doing what was expected of her was hopefully the best way not to anger anyone.
Follow the rules, and she wouldn't be punished. It had worked with her captor, after all. He had only punished her when she defied him by not submitting to being raped, or if she managed to anger him some how. When the men raped her last summer, they had been "punishing" her for not being pregnant. She was a captive back then, and in their eyes, her only use was as a brood mare, breeding children for their people. Most Drykas she had encountered as a captive had felt that way. So by not being pregnant, she wasn't following the rules. She was being defiant, and deserved to be punished in their eyes. Even if it wasn't her fault that her captor hadn't started trying to get her pregnant again. Seirei didn't know why he hadn't tried to breed her after she gave birth to the twins. She had been too afraid to ask for fear that he would start raping her again. She was just thankful that he had left her alone.
Answering the healer's other questions were harder, but Seirei tried her best to answer them all the same.
"My father is a Drykas, but my mother was not, and I grew up in her trade caravan. I'm a woodcarver like she was when she was alive. I was captured roughly a year and a half ago, by a man named Lian Windrunner. He's the father of these two." Seirei said, gesturing at the twins.
The signs that accompanied her words said that she had had no choice about bearing her children, but that she loved them despite the way they were created, and that she couldn't imagine life without them anymore. Seirei didn't think that the twins would understand the concept of rape, but she hesitated saying the word out loud in their presence all the same. She dreaded the day they were old enough to learn about the fate of captives in Endrykas and realized that she had been a captive when they were born. Seirei didn't love them any less for the way Lian had forced himself on her, but she was afraid that Lukar and Lira would think that she did.
"He isn't the father of the child I might be carrying now, though."
Her signs suggested that she hoped that she was wrong about being pregnant, but that she feared that she wasn't.
"After I gave birth to Lukar and Lira, Lian left me alone. I was grateful for that...but others were angry. People knew I was a captive, of course, and they thought I was defying them...defying my...my captor by not getting pregnant again. Last summer, I went to the edge of the city to gather grass to practice weaving. A group of men saw me, and decided I was trying to escape. I wasn't. I won't lie and say I enjoyed being a captive. But I knew that if I tried to escape, I would either be caught, and punished, or I would die out in the Sea of Grass. And I wasn't desperate enough to risk that. Nor would I have abandoned my children even if I had been."
Seirei glanced nervously at Pearl. Would the healer believe her? She truly hadn't been trying to escape that day. She had had hopes of escaping in the future...but not until she had the means and skills to survive such an attempt. And she wouldn't have left her children behind when she was ready to make the attempt.
"They didn't believe me...and I don't know that it would have mattered if they had. I was a captive, and they felt I was defying my captor because I wasn't pregnant. So they decided to punish me."
Seirei shuddered. She couldn't help it. Even now, she had nightmares most nights about being brutally raped by those men.
"If I am really pregnant...I don't know who the father is. There were several men, and it could have been any of them." she said at last."
Then, because she wanted to clarify the issue, she continued speaking.
"A few days after that, I visited the silver chest. Thunder, my strider was given to me that day. And his mother came to claim him ticks after he appeared in the chest." she said softly.
Would this healer believe that she had stolen the striders somehow as Lian had? Would she be angry at Seirei for bonding to a strider, and becoming more than a captive? Seirei didn't know how the other woman would react. And that not knowing made her nervous.
.
.
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